He had his chance; too bad we have another three years of someone we already know is a failure. What's really going to hurt the Democrats are the people who try their hardest to defend him. That's another way he'll be just like Bush.

Well, is this Ann's official mea culpa to the nation? Voters like her helped elect an inexperienced, liberal politician from Chicago. Instead of paying attention to their intuition, they got beguiled by the incessant MSM, portraying Obama the greatest thing since slice bread.

Honestly, though, given the majority in Congress, how much differently do you think Hillary would have been?

And, quite frankly, I wasn't pleased with McCain as a choice on the other side. If I would have voted for any of the three (which I didn't) back then, I probably would have voted for Obama simply because he wasn't a Boomer.

Thankfully, there were other parties involved (cough, Libertarian, cough).

This is the part that I disagree with. In the opening 12.5% of his Presidential Term, the Obama administration has successfully swelled federal spending (multitudes past the levels that helped get him into office), successfully nationalized major banks, and most of the domestic auto industry (including forcing the firing of the CEO of General Motors), nominated a new Supreme Court Justice who should maintain the status quo on the bench, and has plans in place to massively rewrite our energy policy and healthcare system....all in ways which will have a negative effect on the economy.

...it only looks 'erratic and incoherent' from the outside. He's throwing every piece of the progressive/socialist pasta at the wall, and demanding that it stick. The fact that he doesn't understand economics only makes it worse.

With a 3% MOE, it's actually a statistical tie between Romney and Palin in their hypothetical matchups.

Given what's happened with Palin over the last year compared to Romney being relatively unscathed, it's actually a very strong result for Palin to be polling so well at this point.

Conversely, any time an incumbent is under 50% that's a significant sign of weakness. It shows how incredibly soft Obama's supposedly "high approval" ratings are.

Given the inevitable climb in the unemployment rate and the fact that the White House is trying to play hide-the-numbers by holding the mid-year budget update until the middle of August, it would be interesting to see how far any potential matchup starts to slip into Reagan-Mondale territory by the end of the year.

He doesn't understand economics? Duh. Do you think this inexperienced boob ever even owned a stock in his life, much less comprehends lending markets, trading, supply and demand? You could have seen all that just by paying attention to his great work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge. (I mean the collective you, not you personally).

Problem was, ALL of the people who tried to warn you, who tried to show the truth about him, including many from Chicago itself, who knew up close and personal what we would be faced with - were discredited, or not listened to because you believed they were just partisan hate-mongers.

Now, we just have to HOPE (a 4-letter word now, just like CHANGE), we have to Hope that our system of checks and balances kicks back in and prevents a complete disaster. You can hear them grinding the starter, trying to restart the engine, but can they get it running?

"Honestly, though, given the majority in Congress, how much differently do you think Hillary would have been?"

I actually think Hillary would have been much more centrist. Unlike Obama who is an ideologue, Clinton is a pragmatist. My guess is that she would have performed much better on the foreign policy front, and did what Bill did on domestic policy - triangulate, triangulate, triangulate.

The Clintons have always been obsessive poll watchers, and would have had no problem throwing any Democratic congresscritter overboard in a bid to retain power. They would have never delegated major pieces of legislation to Reid and Pelosi and thus gotten themselves bogged down in the pork boondoggle that the stimulus bill became.

This seems fairly reasonable. Most Democrats are moderates. The media bent over backwards to portray Obama as moderate though anyone who was paying attention should not be surprised by how radical he is. Also, anyone who was paying attention shouldn't be surprised by how badly he's fumbling now. He has less experience as an executive than Palin! But you know with him a lot of people WANTED him to do well. Now reality is smacking them in the face.

Obama is different and much worse than Bush. I cannot think of one area policy where Obama hasn't either followed the Bush lead or proposed something much worse. Where Bush gave us Part B, Obama gives us full up socialized medicine. Where Bush gave us 500 billion deficits, Obama gives us two trillion dollar deficits. Where Bush gave us TARP I, Obama gives us more TARP and the $700 billion porkulus package to boot.

Oh, but it is all worth it because Obama was going to close GUITMO, pull out of Iraq, give us an exit strategy in Afghanistan, stop warrantless wiretapping, repeal the Patriot Act, solve the Iranian problem and end the war on terror. How is that working out?

I've never bought the Hillary-is-a-centrist line. Bill Maher believes that and I've not yet found one thing I agree with him on.

Besides, does putting up screens everywhere people gather in groups showing endless state-provided info on raising children sound like a centrist? Sound more Orwellian than centrist and that's right out of Hillary's own mouth.

If I were ever allowed to ask her a question, it would be "what is the difference between a politician mispeaking and lying". Yes, I admit it, I have an abject and visceral dislike for the woman and her husband.

Obama was a Trojan horse for the expansion of socialism to the point of irreversibility, under the auspices of an economic panic. He merely completed FDR's project.

Disliking him now is not going to matter much. The damage won't be undone by the next elections or the next.

We are now living in a country that has an economy that is ordered in majority by socialism. As a result, now is the time to lobby for your cut of the pie, be it ever-shrinking. Until the revolution anyway.

I always figured Obama would be smart enough to realize hard left policies are unpopular in this country. And he would end up doing the right thing for the wrong reasons like Clinton. I clearly over estimated his intelligence or his commitment to the hard left.

Maybe Pogo. Or maybe Cap and Theft and Socialized medicine will die in Congress this fall and Obama will be a lame duck after one year in office. If those two things don't happen this year, they won't happen next year in an election year. At that point, the Dems are left with a totally dispirited base and no sexy vote for black President issue to get people to the polls. They will be alone with an angry Republican base and a country facing 10%+ unemployment and Nancy Pelosi as the face of Congress. If the Dems take it on the chin in 2010, Obama's stock will fall like a teen idol hitting 21.

Unfortunately, when Obama leaves office in 8 or 10 years, the country will look a lot like the south side of Chicago. I'm afraid that it's too late. I have noticed that a lot of Democrats are starting to back away from this administration, so that's a good thing.

"I've never bought the Hillary-is-a-centrist line. Bill Maher believes that and I've not yet found one thing I agree with him on."

I wasn't clear. I believe that Hillary is every bit the hard-core Leftist that Obama is. Her background is Alinsky/Marxist as well. However, she has two things that Obama has never had: smarts and experience.

She was at the helm of the disaster that was HillaryCare, and so she would have known better than Obama that any attempt to socialize American healthcare would only have been successful around the edges: further expanding S-CHIP, instituting catastrophic coverage, etc. rather than the "in your face, going to double the deficit" method that Obama is attempting.

She is also ruthlessly self-interested. She would have followed her husband's example of endlessly poll-testing every word out of her mouth, and so she would have only gone as far left as she thought public mood would tolerate - unlike Obama who is "damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead" Leftist in his every waking thought and deed.

The country would have drifted significantly Left under Hillary, no doubt about it. But it would have done so at a more measured pace without alienating independents at the record-setting pace that Obama is setting.

I believe that, in the long run, the country actually benefits from Obama's stampeding rhino Leftism. It has woken up the country to the dangers of drifting Leftward in a way that continuing the slow drift that we were experiencing probably never would have.

I've said before that there is a significant danger for the Left that Obama will wind up being their worst nightmare. He and his policies are engendering an anti-Leftist backlash that could actually wind up moving the clock backward on the otherwise inevitable expansion of government power and taxation.

Just look at what's happening in many states already: programs are being cut back, employees laid off, and there is absolutely no tolerance for further tax increases. All of these are largely the result of the decline in tax receipts caused by the horrendous condition of the economy. But this year is only a small taste of what's coming next year in state budgets: many budgets were balanced using accounting tricks and furloughs instead of layoffs. Next year when revenues are even lower, those tricks will be exhausted and it will be more and more difficult to justify wasteful government spending and patronage jobs.

Those problems are quickly trickling up the federal level, and with the upcoming 2010 and 2012 elections there will be a rising public mandate that government employees "share the pain" that so many in the private sector are feeling.

Obama could very well represent "Hope and Change." Just not in the way that his supporters were expecting.

Reading about his past, his associations with ACORN and his role in the CRA, I was seriously worried about Obama, but, like everyone else, hoped that he would be more pragmatic--or at least rule by the polls--when elected.

Instead, what he's done just in the first few months is so far beyond my worst fears during the campaign, I still feel like I'm in shock.

Unfortunately, as Pogo said, there's no easy undoing of it. Just how does one kill a government program? Or, more to the point, trillions worth of government programs?

I may admit, in hindsight natch, when I cast an especially egregious vote but I don't see a need to apologize. And Obama is only six months in, he could still recover his bearings though to do so would go against his soul & his grain.

I'm not sure on what side of who's bed you slept under last night, but why the hostility? Something strike a nerve or something?

If memory serves, Bill Maher got into hot water over a comment that cast a shadow of cowardice over our armed forces because we decide to launch missiles from hundreds of miles away while they do their own dirty work up close and personal.

Yeah, I disagree with that quite a bit. Did you somehow equate me with Maher's position by mistake?

Obama has not lost his bearings - he is steering the ship of state hard left. That was his plan, that is his goal, and with luck, he will create enough hatred towards liberals and other communists that they be out of power for a generation. Probably won't happen, but one can Hope, right?

The voters who saw a hope for a change from Bush's Republican low level looters are going to need some guts to admit that the Obama Democrats are worse than anyone wants to admit. After making that bad a choice, it will be hard to get their confidence up to make another choice. We need as polarizing a person as Palin to get people's heads out of the sand and re-do this debacle. The looting now is terminal in type and scale, and we get to surrender our world geo-political leadership in the bargain to satisfy the stuck on stupid fantasies of the Marxist/environmental Religion State Church. Frankly, the threat is out in the open in the Honduras test case. The candidate favored by the Obama Democrats had set a special election to undo the Constitutional Limits and he also had the election results pre-programed into the computers...the question is not who votes in a Marxist Tyranny, it is who counts the votes.

Currently reading Barbara Tuchman "Stillwell and the American Experience in China, 1911-45"

She writes "....he was remarkable for singleness of purpose and sense of humor which "only fails him in case of the monsoon and stuffed shirts." His motto was Illegitimati non carborundum, personally translated as "Don't let the bastards grind you down."

The BO administration has delayed theannual midsummer budget update which is usually released around this date.

This means things are even worse in the economy than they expected. It will definitely not be released whilst Congress is diddling with healthcare. The gloomy numbers would spell the death knell for Obamacare.

there will be a rising public mandate that government employees "share the pain" that so many in the private sector are feeling.

I hope so. But they are not going down without a fight. These are people who believe they have tenure, with early retirement and plush bennies.

Look for the sort of blackmail that city and state govt. always uses to force a tax hike: cutting emergency services. Or programs taxpayers -- not the grifters, actual taxpayers -- really use, like library services.

The city of Dayton they just fired a bunch of cops because of budget constraints. I highly doubt there was a proportional number of worthless bureaucrats let go.

He doesn't care about economics. He has an agenda to push and only cares about having the power to push that agenda. To be surprised that someone who hung out with Bill Ayers, listened to Rev. Wright ever Sunday, etc would be radical shows the power of denial.

To not understand economics on at least an elementary level, which Obama doesn't seem to, is to not understand human nature. Human motivation drives the economic engine.

Oh, please...McCain had a record. He would not have been anywhere near the socialist Obama has been exposed as already. And yes, it makes a difference. Something we will all have to live with now. McCain was a lousy campaigner, but he isn't Obama. Not by a longshot.

And Obama hasn't lost any of his voters until they actually vote against him. He's already had you.

Every candidate for POTUS should have to have run their own business at some point. It should be a requirement. Really.

I don't think there's any better way to understand "The Economy" than being out there, competing, with no safety net. And the constraints on entrepreneurs and small businesses are just unreal. They don't have the sort of lobbying power--or more importantly, the time!--to get their voices heard.

I think running your own business is a level of education that far outstrips anything, learned in college.

I'm seeing the Obama dichotomy in these comments again, so someone please remind me: Is Obama the ruthless Machiavellian dastardly Politician with an army of clever tricks up his sleeve to hoodwink the country, or is he an un-knowing, unlearnable rube from the south side of Chicago?

"I'm seeing the Obama dichotomy in these comments again, so someone please remind me: Is Obama the ruthless Machiavellian dastardly Politician with an army of clever tricks up his sleeve to hoodwink the country, or is he an un-knowing, unlearnable rube from the south side of Chicago?"

He is a bit of both. Tactically he is the former. He is a ruthless, nasty, South Side politician who is unafraid to trash his advasories or cheat to get ahead. Strategically he is the latter. His ideas and policies are those of a person who never set foot out of the cocoon of radical liberal thinking. It is a deadly combination for the country.

It's a tough question, really. I mean, he certainly seems canny, intelligent, and a leftist idealogue. However, if he had some dastardly plan, it seems like he wouldn't entrust every policy decision to Reid/Pelosi. That alone is evidence of something wanting in his grand strategy.

DAD wrote - "He doesn't care about economics .... to not understand economics on at least an elementary level, which Obama doesn't seem to, is to not understand human nature. Human motivation drives the economic engine."

Yeah, he’s a gamer.

He’s betting his chips on game theory economics that human nature will drive the engine of national health care, including the health of banks and corps triaged via bailouts. The costs-be-damned.

He’s gaming on “human nature” to like him at the polls.

With heavies like Greenspan begging pardon before Congress for fundamental errors in assuming “human nature” would be the invisible hand in free markets to act rationally (rational self interest) to right sinking economic ships, Obama can get a free hall pass from claiming any expertise in economics at all – after all, our best experts failed – so Obama can forgo any guise and conceit of expertise, and he can game on the central theorem of economic game theory, namely, that he will have just one more move than his opponents -- that human nature will like him at the end of the voting day.

Let those who have the sword of economic expertise, die by the sword. Ala Wright.

For a gamer, claiming economic expertise is the way for Obama to fall into Greenspan’s grave.

If I were Obama, I wouldn’t claim economic expertise, not even if I had it. Not even if I could give unassailable economic proofs for Fibonacci relationships and Elliot waves. The last thing I would do is care for economics at the level of expertise. Sure death.

Obama does not need to care about an understanding of economics any more than Gell-Mann needs a definition of complexity.

"Every candidate for POTUS should have to have run their own business at some point. It should be a requirement. Really."

A good idea. However, as Fred was mentioned upthread, I will again state what I have long thought about POTUS: the primary qualification should be that you don't really want the job, but will serve if asked.

Madison Man...Obama is not a rube. He is also not unlearned. And he is not a king seeking to destroy his opponents in the local political scene. The real Obama is a destroyer setting a course for whatever disaster/crisis he can steer the ship of state onto and into so that his pirate friends can loot the wreck. Never before has a US President had those goals. Even if Obama was born in Hawai, he is not a native american in his care for our country's success and survival here in central North America. Obama has his goals set upon a world rulership to come after the USA has imploded economically and its world leadership power is gone with the wind, all with a little help from Obama's insider work done to insure it.

I'm seeing the Obama dichotomy in these comments again, so someone please remind me: Is Obama the ruthless Machiavellian dastardly Politician with an army of clever tricks up his sleeve to hoodwink the country, or is he an un-knowing, unlearnable rube from the south side of Chicago?

Why is this an either/or question? I give Obama credit for being both. He's the "un-knowing...rube" in the sense that he believes his socialist policies are good for America. He believes that politicians can do a better job of allocating the economy's resources than can the market. He believes the Poor are poor because of the actions of the Rich. He believes that apologizing to the World for our shortcomings (real and imagined) will not be interpreted as a sign of weakness by our enemies and adversaries. He believes that the past failures of the policies he now advocates do not reflect on the merits of those policies; if those policies had been implemented by someone as intelligent as HE, the policies would not have failed. Etc.

He's "the ruthless Machiavellian" because he knowingly misrepresented his political goals before and after the election. He knew that he would not have won the Democratic nomination had he honestly campaigned on the agenda he now proposes to implement. Nor would he have won the election -- even against someone as incompetent as a campaigner as McCain -- had he campaigned as what he is: a man of the far Left. Obama did not campaign as who he really is because he knows that liberal policies are not popular in America. He believes it's not the policies, but the American people, that are wrong. So, for our own good, he lied and continues to lie to us.

Any semblance of good will I had toward Obama (early on it was purely for sticking it to Hillary) disintegrated with the civilian-force-as-powerful-as-the-military comment. Not as big. Not as well-funded. As powerful.

That one little (slip of the tongue) statement gave me the Il Duce heebie-jeebies for days.

I actually think Hillary would have been much more centrist. Unlike Obama who is an ideologue, Clinton is a pragmatist. My guess is that she would have performed much better on the foreign policy front, and did what Bill did on domestic policy - triangulate, triangulate, triangulate.

I agree with this, and wish I didn't have to. Of the two Clintons, she was the corrupt one, while he was the venal one.

BUT, for both of them, I think that power is everything, and, while her leanings are likely every bit as leftist as Obama's, I think power is much more important to her than results. As a consequence of this, I don't see her pushing us any further to the left than the public would happily allow her to.

As importantly, Bill Clinton became fairly responsive to the economy. I don't see Hillary increasing taxes and spending as we head into a recession, or flushing trillions down the drain to pay off political debts. Keeping the economy running well was a key to her husband maintaining good polling results even in the midst of all his personal scandals.

Once I learned about his 20 years in Rev Wrights Church of Hatin' Whitey and Especially the Jews, along with his long association with William Ayers, I knew I couldn't stand him. It would not matter if in every other respect he was a fusion of Ronald Reagan and Eisenhower - he would be too damaged to be President. To me it is as if a candidate spent 20 years in the Klan, but claimed to not really pay attention to what the Grand Kleagle was actually saying - it would be wholly unbelievable.

"I'm seeing the Obama dichotomy in these comments again, so someone please remind me: Is Obama the ruthless Machiavellian dastardly Politician with an army of clever tricks up his sleeve to hoodwink the country, or is he an un-knowing, unlearnable rube from the south side of Chicago?"

As noted by others, my answer is both. Economically, I do think that he is clueless. But I also think that he doesn't yet realize what he doesn't know, and that is why he is so dangerous right now. He seems personally convinced of a lot of the economic nonsense that he is spouting. I also am not sure he really cares.

I don't see Obama personally being Machiavellian, but rather, those around him. That others may also have this view may arguably be why the meme about his teleprompter telling him what to say resonates.

But that also means that he is too weak to stand up to those around him, and I think that we have seen some indication of that, esp. with how he is repeatedly being rolled by Congressional leaders of his party.

No. I say it was fashion. Ann is nothing if not a fashionable woman. It was fashionable last summer to convince yourself that Obama was smart and centrist. Obama was the cool brand. And people like Ann and Megan McArdle who should have known better fell for it. The Democrats have done a great job in the last four years as branding themselves as the party of the sophisticated elite.

It's been depressing the speed with which he has been able to....Change America-{to spend it}.

There's been absolutely no check on that-or it's been negligible.

And, will we ever have a President-that is not hand picked by the media?

What is worse still, more than all of that is the way that Obama flirts with doing the dasdardly-the "show trials" hemming and hawing, removing himself from the responsibility of that-and somehow garnering credit for almost doing the right thing.

What makes that worse is that has an effect whether he likes it or not on his ability to negotiate in the future.

Indecisiveness in diplomacy-you often pay for that-in ways you never imagine-or in reality the best Americans pay dearly for it.

I remember when the Reagan administration was written off during the summer of 1981. The recession continued to deepen and did not noticeable turn around until 1983. The great thing about these kinds of posts is that President Obama and Democrats will get due credit when things turn around. That is why we have elections and we will have to wait and see.

He doesn't care about economics. He has an agenda to push and only cares about having the power to push that agenda.

You people have elected a man who doesn't give a rat's behind about anything but accomplishing his agenda and paying off the people who put him into power. Now, we have to live with this mess for the rest of our miserable lives.

Well lets sum up the Obama's economic smarts. He claims that he inherited an ecomomy that was mismanaged the previous 8 years which we all acknowledged was caused by a whole lot of rampant spending by both the government and the consumer which essentially caused the credit crisis leading to the dismal economy we now are in.

So Obama's cure as emphasized by the Intellectual Giant Joe Biden, is to spend our way out of bankruptcy. See Bush only doubled the national debt which was not enough to spur economic growth so Obama is going to triple it and then we'll really be on the road to economic vahalla. I mean that makes so much sense it makes my eyes bleed.

How about this dose of logic. If government can get us out of recessions doesn't it stand to reason that we'd never have one in the first fucking place?

Madison -- For years, Bush was a total idiot who was also a political super-genius. I sought an answer about this strange paradox, probably also from you, to no avail. Interesting that the shoe is on the other hand now.

As for Obama, in my opinion his problem is cognitive dissonance. He's never really held a job. He's a smart academic who has bought into academic theories that are supposed to work. All the models say. All the Keynesians agree.

John said: "No. I say it was fashion. Ann is nothing if not a fashionable woman. It was fashionable last summer to convince yourself that Obama was smart and centrist."

I fell for Obama too until he forcefully declared during a debate that he would raise capital gains tax even after the moderator (Tim Russert?) pointed out that historically raising that tax produced DECREASED revenues---NOT more revenue for the federal government. Obama said he did not care--it was fairer to tax capital gains MORE!

Tax revenue is already markedly decreased under Obama--wonder if he cares now.

Well well. I knew Althouse had bailed on Obama, I just didn't expect the mea culpa so soon. If moderate Democrats are already throwing Obama under the bus, it's only a matter of a few weeks/months until swing voters do the same. THEN Obama is in BIG trouble. I predict he'll be under 50% approval rating in 2-3 months. Then what is Jeremy going to say? That the American people are HATAS???

You were actually paying attention. Most of the centrists and center right folks who fell for Obama were too busy thinking how dreamy he was and how great it was going to be to vote for a black man to notice things like that.

The dreamy hopenchangy types are now awakening to $2 trillion deficits and are WIDE AWAKE in horror at what Obama/Pelosi are trying to do with their health care on top of trashing a vulnerable economy!

Well, I am glad to see the conversation proceeded along for a good length of time before the thread got jacked.

The points have been made above, and better than I could say, but I'll repeat them - while I certainly had no love for McCain (frankly, until he selected Palin, I'd planned to sit the election out; not that my vote made a tinker's damn of difference in the godforsaken leftist hellhole that is Massachusetts), all things being equal, he wouldn't have been able to do as much economic damage as Obama. The NYT would dog his every step (and McCain wouldn't / couldn't ignore them) and Congress would hobble him. It would, I think, be a Mexican standoff, with Palin drawing most of the fire.

He probably would have pursued Obama's course in Iraq and Afgahnistan, but I suspect his need for MSM love would have led him to close Club Gitmo and scrap the Patriot Act. But I don't think he'd have allowed Putin to roll him, neither would he have given Israel the middle finger.

Hillary would have - there's always been a nasty streak of anti-semitism in her - but having had her ass handed to her in the HillaryCare debacle (and, like Bill, a committed poll-watcher), she'd have been much more timid about unleashing the full Marxist agenda onto the country.

I guess the upshot here is that McCain would be Obama-lite with $1 trillion deficits and McCainCare(aka ObamaCare-lite) with continuing quagmire in the Middle East. Under that scenario, the GOP would be well and truly screwed for the next 25 years. But with all the blame/shit-storm going to come the Dems way now, I can sit back in my easy chair and wait for the sweet victory.

The real Obama is a destroyer setting a course for whatever disaster/crisis he can steer the ship of state onto and into so that his pirate friends can loot the wreck.

I dislike Obama but this kind of attack is unjustified and just hurts the side that makes it.

I think that Obama sincerely means well. He seems to me like a nice person who really thinks he is doing the things that will make the world better.

However, he is also arrogant. This is the result of being a reasonably smart black man raised in an environment of guilty white liberals who are ecstatic to find a resonably smart black man who sounds like a white man when he talks. He was consequently promoted as fast and high as possible by those guilty white liberals. He has never really had his ideas challenged because he has always lived and worked in the elite white liberal academic/political environment. So he has an inflated idea of his abilities - e.g., "I have a gift, Harry," and "I'm glad they're not blaming me for policies enacted before I was born," and "We won" and "clinging to their guns and religion", etc, etc.

But he's no "destroyer" who is "bent" on anything. He's an arrogant affirmative action hire, someone many of us have seen before in our work environments.

Bill Clinton learned pretty quickly that he wasn't as smart as he thought. Obama still has time.

Actually, I would suggest that what happened is that Clinton discovered what he didn't know, instead of that he wasn't as smart as he thought he was. I don't think that he will ever discover that.

But what I see having happened with Bill Clinton is that he discovered that he really didn't know that much about economics, and then pulled some all night pizza (and maybe cocaine?) fueled study group sessions, and came up to speed fairly quickly. And that is what must be remembered about Bill Clinton - in the end, the one thing that he seemed to do fairly well was not screw up the economy. He seemed to know that if he kept the economy chugging along merrily, that the American people would excuse him almost anything else. And they did.

Buyer's remorse. Swing voters and moderate Democrats didn't realize they were electing a radical, Marxist, Alinsky-ite Communist. They will join with Republicans in 2012 to oust the Commie and elect President Romney or President Palin to correct his attempted wrecking of America. Hopefully they'll give either one a GOP congress or at least one with enough moderate Democrats to block the radical Commies.

madawaskan - don't lose hope. IF we survived Jimmy Carter we can survive Obama. Remember Carter was a one-term President with the MSM totally on his side, demonizing Reagan the whole time. People forget just how vicious the media was back then. I trust the American people are not such degenerates as a whole as to not wake up and correct their mistake in 2010 and 2012.

DADvocate: It's the same conversation, as 7M noted, that went on all through the Bush II Presidency. Then, Rove or Cheney was assumed to be pulling the strings -- so the argument went. I find pendulum swings like this interesting.

I hesitate to suggest that Joe Biden is the person behind the curtain. (The mind cringes). Rahm Emanuel? Exactly who is the mastermind behind Obama, the one who controls all his minions? If that is what's actually happening, it sounds like a good idea to find out.

(For the record, I don't really buy into the man-behind-the-curtain idea, either now or during Bush II)

Just another analogy about the Carter period. In 1977 the media was 99% tilted towards the left. The Congress had the same Dem majority as now.

In 2009, we have talk radio dominance. We have 1000s of conservative/moderate blogs. Fox News(although troubling lately with Glenn Beck). Young people are smarter and more informed then they were back in the late 70s when it was all about Uncle Valter telling them how it was.

So he has an inflated idea of his abilities - e.g., "I have a gift, Harry,"

Oh Jesus. Did you hear the actual interview of Reid talking about that? I listened to it and actually became nauseous. I’m not sure if it was Reid’s voice or if he actually believed the bullshit coming out of his mouth. Actually after listening to Harry Reid brag about how he learned how to swim in a whorehouse swimming pool and then complaining about having to smell the great unwashed as they visit the Capitol building, I will have to question the sanity of the people of Nevada if they send this bufoon back to DC.

Jason - I think a 2009 Congresscritter hack is the same as a 1978 hack. I think a Dem from a moderate district is scared of supporting ObamaCare and CapNTrade because of the prospect of losing in 2010. It all depends on how viable a threat Obama/base is to oust moderate Dems in the 2010 primaries.

Since the attention has switched to this thread, I'm going to post my question here.

Meade, I'm puzzled as to the purpose of your extensive cut-n-paste from HuffinGluePost on Obama's response to McCain's 'the fundamentals are sound' statement in September 2008 that preceded this front-paged comment. Especially since Obama was spouting the same sound bites by March 2009. (gee, I wonder what happened in between to change his mind?)

Are you claiming that both Obama and McCain are deluded as to the true state of the economy? Is it better or worse than either claimed?

I've seen little in the last eight to nine months to make me think that McCain wasn't much closer to an accurate assessment of the situation at that point than Obama and his team of 'never waste a crisis' advisors. I hate to engage in premature geezerdom but after having observed the 1970s oil shocks (remember when 75 cents a gallon for gas was considered expensive?), the farm economy in the '80s, Reagan's recession, the S&L crisis, and thinking my first home mortgage with a 10% interest rate was a good deal, I'm inclined to think that we could have weathered the financial storm with much less government action. Yes, we needed something like TARP to work the bad paper out of the banking system much like we needed the RTC to clean up the S&L’s in ‘90s, but we didn’t/don’t need porkulus, the government takeover of GM and Chrysler, green jobs, cap-n-trade, or universal health care. I don’t see that McCain would have given Congress a blank check to write these bills the way Obama has.

It’s nice to see Reagan getting credit for turning the US economy around after the Carter years. Obama may get, though he will likely not deserve, credit for the economy regaining health by 2012.

OK I'll be honest I don't really remember the Carter years but I do know about the gas lines and I don't think Obama will be stupid enough to do something like that to remind voters daily what is wrong with their government.

I fully expect to see the media next election time interviewing the unemployed who will say they are voting for Obama because if it was not for Obama they would not be getting their unemployment check, nationalized health care, and mortgage relief.

He dropped to 50% today on Rasmussen. And that was before it was announced that he's trying to hide the ball on the latest budget numbers. And before the even worse unemployment numbers are released in early August.

I think you're being overly optimistic on when Obama drops below 50%...

Another thing. Americans do not have the stomach to turn the country from quasi-socialist to full 100% Euro-socialist entity. This is where Obama is deluded and has overreached. He'll learn his lesson soon enough.

It is helpful to understand why Obama won the 2008 election in the first instance.

Obama was trailing McCain after the GOP convention. Palin was a big hit with the GOP base and drew enormous crowds to their joint rallies. However, the day Lehman Brothers declared bankruptcy, the markets tanked and Obama retook a lead he never relinquished.

It only took six months of living under "hope and change," though, for Obama to lose the support of the swing voters who elected him and fire up the GOP base who stayed home in 2008.

There was no reason for any 2008 voter to assume that Obama would be a competent President. Obama's resume was thinner than Sarah Palin's. He had not accomplished anything substantive during his entire political career apart from giving good speeches and being elected.

Obama's record was one of passively allowing others to do the heavy lifting of governance and then taking credit if the idea worked or fleeing if the idea did not poll well.

The Obama way was on full display just before the election when Bush went to Congress asking for money to bail out the banks. McCain flew immediately to Washington to help hammer out a deal while Obama lay in the weeds to see what would happen. Being identified with the unpopular bank bailout kept McCain tanked with voters so Obama stayed away.

The Obama way as President has been much the same. Obama has not offered a single plan to accomplish anything. Rather, he gives a speech laying out general feel good principles and allows the Dem Congress to enact anything it wants. When Congress passed the Porkulus bill, Obama took credit and is now paying the price.

The same thing is happening with the public option health insurance and the cap and tax bills. Obama has not offered anything approaching a plan and the Dems in Congress are offering wildly divergent ideas of their own. There is no real demand for either bill and the price tags scare the hell out of anyone with half a sense of responsibility. Look for Obama to hide in the weeds again when these bills fail.

However, Obama is no longer an anonymous Senator or a candidate who can get away with hiding. He is The Man and the buck stops with him.

If Obama fails to enact any substantive legislation in 2008 while unemployment hits double digits and the deficit hit $2 Trillion, Jimmy Carter will be looking pretty good in comparison as President and at the polls come reelection time.

"I remember when the Reagan administration was written off during the summer of 1981. The recession continued to deepen and did not noticeable turn around until 1983. "

The difference is that the public perception (and the reality) was that the economy recovered because of Reagan's policies, not in spite of them.

Given Obama's multiple promises of the "immediate" impact of the stimulus, he's going to be hard pressed to claim any sort of credit for a weak recovery that may begin sometime in the middle of 2010. He's already attempting to rewrite history by claiming he never said it was going to have an immediate impact, but the GOP is already running ads showing Obama saying exactly that.

Also, people remembered just how bad things were under Carter just a few years before and recognized that there was some short-term pain necessary to escape stagflation (remember that word?). On the other hand, people are already looking back to 2007-08 and remembering that they had jobs.

Obama's already being compared to Carter by even liberal journalists. I don't think even Obama's highly overrated oratory is going to be enough to recover from those kinds of comparisons. In 1984, the economy was strong. 2012 is highly unlikely to be anything like that.

I've got little patience for Obama voters who say they're surprised by how far to the left he's governing.

For one thing, look at the Congress he's got to work with. Even Bill Clinton, now widely regarded as a centrist Democrat, spent his first two years in liberal mode with Democrat majorities in both houses of Congress.

But, second, there was a plethora of information available about Obama's ideological foundation which foresaw all this. Look at his commentary about the "Second Bill of Rights" and codifying "positive rights" (ie, things the state *must* provide for its citizens).

I wish I could say that all this radicalism was unforeseeable. But it was entirely foreseeable.

"I actually think Hillary would have been much more centrist. Unlike Obama who is an ideologue...."

"The media bent over backwards to portray Obama as moderate though anyone who was paying attention should not be surprised by how radical he is."

Two ridiculously wrong statements. Obama's great fault is that, as with Bill Clinton, he talks the sweet talk of the liberal prince, but he is, in fact, a total centrist, a complete Washington insider (in his views) who won office running as an outsider. Obama is unwilling or unable to marshall the personal or policital courage necessary to use his bully pulpit to encourage real change, and to actually champion the enactment of the progressive agenda he campaigned on. He's continuing and expanding on Bush's criminal terror war, and he's too beholden to the powers that be, to the bankers and corporate owners of America's wealth, to do anything that will antagonize them...which means he'll never do a damn thing that needs doing.

He was a can't miss prospect. Then his number gets called with 1st and goal on the opponent's 1-yard line. But with a gaping hole in front of him, Obama fumbles the handoff (aka The Stimulus Plan) after which he runs off the field and pukes on the sideline due to nerves.

I hesitate to suggest that Joe Biden is the person behind the curtain. (The mind cringes). Rahm Emanuel? Exactly who is the mastermind behind Obama, the one who controls all his minions? If that is what's actually happening, it sounds like a good idea to find out.

Madison Man, Biden is the guy getting tangled up in the curtain. ;-)I’m not sure there is any ‘one’ person pulling the strings but I do have to wonder the motivation behind a President is dead set on passing two pieces of legislation that will essentially mire this nation in so much debt that we will never be able to get out of. I mean you inherit a dismal economy that was already saddled with a suffocating debt and your cure is to triple that debt? I mean this is so far beyond common sense as to defy logic. That tells me he is either so ignorant of basic economics as to disqualify him from the job or is purposely trying to financially destroy the country. I’m sorry but there is no logical alternative.

L.E. Lee said "I remember when the Reagan administration was written off during the summer of 1981. The recession continued to deepen and did not noticeable turn around until 1983.The great thing about these kinds of posts is that President Obama and Democrats will get due credit when things turn around."

The question isn't whether or not the economy will recover from this recession. It will. The question is what it will look like when it does.

Carter inherited a weak economy from Gerald Ford. And, officially, only two quarters during the Carter presidency were spent in recession. But employment was weak throughout, inflation was high throughout, interest rates were high throughout...

Obama could turn out to be Reagan -- being given lemons and making lemonade. But he could also turn out to be Carter -- being given lemons and making a sour swill.

Scott M: I probably would have voted for Obama simply because he wasn't a Boomer.

Actually, using the Census Bureau's parameters for the Baby Boom (born 1946-1964, see http://www.census.gov/Press-Release/www/releases/archives/facts_for_features_special_editions/006105.html), Obama is a Boomer.

"Obama's great fault is that, as with Bill Clinton, he talks the sweet talk of the liberal prince, but he is, in fact, a total centrist, a complete Washington insider (in his views) who won office running as an outsider."

This one's a head-shaker. Obama's a "centrist"? Based on what?

Because of a commitment to balancing the budget that he proclaimed during the campaign but then promptly tossed out the window the second he had a chance to sign off on $800 billion of pure pork?

Because socializing our entire medical system somehow became a tenet of "centrism" in what alternate universe?

Because taking over GM and Chrysler while strong-arming banks isn't actual full-on communism as opposed to just corrupt socialism?

I understand that you seem to regard anything other than consigning everyone to kibbutz-living is some kind "right-wing conspiracy," but the rest of the world defines "centrism" a whole lot differently.

The difference is that the public perception (and the reality) was that the economy recovered because of Reagan's policies, not in spite of them..

Oh, you can be sure that if the economy does turn around (which pretty much every economists says it has to someday), we will be inundated by MSM pronouncements that it was because of Obama'a policies.

Limbaugh last week pointed out the bulk of the stimulus spending will be in 2010, cunningly designed to arrive during the midterm campaign.

Robert Cook said: "Obama is unwilling or unable to marshall the personal or policital courage necessary to use his bully pulpit to encourage real change, and to actually champion the enactment of the progressive agenda he campaigned on."You've got to be kidding -- on both counts.

A) He's betting the farm on the centerpieces of his domestic platform. Whether you support the platform or not, anybody who thinks he's "unwilling or unable to use his bully pulpit" for change hasn't been paying attention.

B) If you think that he's governing to the right of how he campaigned, I'm guessing that you're in a tiny minority.

Why do you suppose it is that he's having no trouble with the Ted Kennedys of the world and gobs of trouble with the Ben Nelsons and Evan Bayhs?

If he were truly governing as a centrist, it would be the other way around, wouldn't it?

The Obama presidency is already over. It happened unbelievably fast. It will not be resurrected ala Clinton, because Obama has a fixed core whereas Clinton had, shall we say, personal flexibility.

Two months ago, Facebook, blog comments, et al, were crammed with the full-throated crowing of progressives. Now... crickets. Far and away the worst blunder: acting like the economy was something that could be dispensed with quickly with a magic cure and let's move on to more important things. Then, as the magic failed utterly, the more important things are being recast in unpalatable ways.

Add in blunders over Iran and Honduras and a foreign policy full of look-at-me but no concrete steps. Add in continuous over-exposure. And most of all add in that he sees his role as something very different from any other previous president's view (and very different from what he himself presented in the campaign), one that most take as decidedly unpresidential.

We are seeing the train wreck of progressivism, and the silent shock on the left comes from them realizing it too.

imbaugh last week pointed out the bulk of the stimulus spending will be in 2010, cunningly designed to arrive during the midterm campaign.

7/20/09 12:51 PM

It doesn't really matter when the stimulus spending is timed. Unemployment will be 11.0%+ by November 2010 and no amount of graft and giveaways to unions will change the end result. What is $700 billion in a $14 trillion economy anyway? A drop in the bucket just shifting the deck chairs - it isn't real economic growth from the private economy.

You and others like you who, despite a wealth of evidence of this man's unsuitability for office, failed to examine that evidence before casting your vote are personally responsible for the state of the nation.

It's hard to be sympathetic to repentant Obama voters (at least, the ones who were paying attention at all, which isn't a given for American voters).

Let's face it, most of you just hated Palin. You need to get over yourselves. I had no great love for the good Governor either but there has to be some sort of rationality and sense of priorities when you step into the ballot box.

Voting in a socialist because the non-socialist's VP has a bigger family and loves Jesus more than you do isn't a winning political strategy.

Like the wise Emperor Palpatine said - "Everything had proceeded according to my design".

Any astute political observer knew in Nov 2008 that the only possible way to success for Obama would be to become like Bill Clinton. If he persisted in his socialist ways, he'd be punished bigtime. I hate to say I TOLD YOU SO.

Alex said: "At least we know Reagan try to do the right things to help the economy(supply side economics). Everything Obama is trying is guaranteed to failure if you understand economics."

Well, for one thing, there are plenty of people who understand economics quite well who would reject this sentiment out of hand.

I'm likely to be on the other side of most of them on most questions. And I agree that Reagan's reforms were successful at revitalizing the economy.

That said, Reagan was sadly unsuccessful at putting the government on a sustainable fiscal path. The more time goes on, the more I think David Stockman was right for rebelling against the Reagan Administration on their unwillingness to pursue spending reductions to accompany their tax cuts.

Ironically enough, the same thing happened between Mitch Daniels (now Governor of Indiana) and the GWB Administration when he was budget director. Daniels reportedly sought spending reductions to accompany the tax cuts and found himself a lonely voice.

Cutting taxes is easy. And I much prefer lower taxes to higher ones. But we've *got* to get our spending under control.

"Limbaugh last week pointed out the bulk of the stimulus spending will be in 2010, cunningly designed to arrive during the midterm campaign."

No doubt that they intentionally designed it that way, but public opinion will have hardened by then.

For example, the senior President Bush presided over a recession for the last couple years of his term. The recovery had already begun before the 1992 election, but voters had already made up their minds that they were ready for a change.

The more likely result is that the Republicans retake the House in 2010, and that they are given credit for a recovering economy by putting a screeching halt to the trifecta of economic destruction - Obama, Pelosi, Reid.

The MSM might try to play it differently, but they've already squandered their credibility in the 2008 election, and their influence is declining on a daily basis as fewer and fewer readers/viewers are tuning in to hear how they spin the latest Obama disaster into positive news.

Even the most optimistic economists are predicting unemployment hovering around 10% by the 2010 elections. I don't care how many "feel good" ads the Democrats run, not having a job is not having a job and it gets harder every day to claim that "it's all Bush' fault."

"Cutting taxes is easy. And I much prefer lower taxes to higher ones. But we've *got* to get our spending under control."

I couldn't agree more with the sentiment. The good news for fiscal conservatives is that the Democratic spending orgy is creating the public mood which might actually reward politicians for cutting programs rather than punishing them.

To judge by his 11:54am comment, Jeremy thinks we'll be impressed by an obscene German insult, but is too stupid to get it right, even with the help of on-line bilingual dictionaries. He asked someone "How can you write with a little chicken in your mouth?", as if there were something shameful about eating chicken. He obviously meant 'cock' as in penis, but the German word Hahn, though it means 'cock' as in male chicken, does not mean 'penis'.

Jonah Goldberg once made a similar mistake, telling the entire French nation to kiss his donkey: 'âne' is French for 'ass', but only the donkey kind of ass, not the butt kind.

Now I think I'll have another bite of Hahn while Jeremy plays with his Schwanz -- or perhaps with someone else's, it's really none of our business.

Obama is just doing what I expected Obama to do domestically and it doesn't worry me over much because it has the potential to be enough of a shock to the system that there is more of a chance NOW, in my opinion, for some real push back than would ever have happened with a continual slow creep forward in spending, debt, and ubiquitous government interference in our lives.

What I'm actually alarmed about is Honduras.

What can that man have been thinking!

WE will recover and possibly even become stronger.

If Honduras fails to uphold its constitution against a power grab from an *individual* attempting to set himself up as presidente for life... Honduras will not recover.

How we, as a nation, found ourselves on the wrong side of this conflict makes me utterly ashamed and alarmed for the permanent harm that will be done and makes me wonder *truly* about the judgment and understanding of the man who is president.

Doesn't he understand ANYTHING?

When Obama was elected we heard over and over and over how inspiring it was to the WORLD that the transition was without violence... Bush, for all the fantasies of Erica Jong and her intellectual equals, did not for a moment contemplate finding a way to remain in power. One man stepped down and another stepped up and they did so with smiles and not a single shot fired.

Inspiration for the world.

And we find out now that it is meaningless. Obama does not see the value nor understand the necessity nor even seem to have the barest concept that the difference between blood running in the street and *not* is that the president is JUST NOT THAT IMPORTANT. He is interchangeable.

To borrow shamelessly from someone... the measure of a dictator is not if he was voted *into* office, it's if he can be voted *out*.

And so we find ourselves aligned with someone angling to be president forever, HIM, as if he is more important, that he can not be replaced by another in his own party even, an interchangeable cog in the mechanics of the Honduran government to step down gracefully when his term is complete.

Because Obama thinks it's just not that important to step down gracefully... and people in Honduras have already died.

And a host of computers with *certified* election results confirming him as the overwhelming winner of an election THAT NEVER HAPPENED are found...

And the United States of America is on the WRONG SIDE.

If Honduras survives with her constitution and her sovereignty intact it will be no thanks to us.

There was so much common sense evidence (can you, for example, say: "voting record") to predict the current outcome it boggles the mind that so many actively avoided seeing it. It is something I thought I would never witness. Mass delusion of societies is not an unusual occurrence in history I suppose. Sure is scary to live through though.

Jim - the fascinating thing is to look at California. They are actually cutting back programs, not just decreasing the rate of growth. This is almost unprecedented.

Scott - I agree the deficit is too large to retake Congres in 2010. However the razor-thin Dem majority will be useless to Reid/Pelosi as the moderate Dems that survive the 2010 purge will not be beholden to them any longer and the radical left agenda will be DOA.

BTW how can there be such a discrepancy between Rasmussen and CBS/ABC/Gallup polls? I recall Rasmussen had correctly predicted the election results of 2004-2008, so how do the liberal polls get away with this fraud?

My thoughts this morning in the shower was that the problem is that the power brokers in Washington, D.C. really running things now need to invite Joe Biden to their meetings, since he is at least tokenly the VP. But, he doesn't quite understand the rules, that there is a lot of stuff that they don't tell us. So, he inadvertently is telling the truth some times about what he is supposed to know better than discuss with the rest of us.

Seven Machos - like I said earlier it doesn't matter why someone voted for Obama. Now Althouse and Meade are repentant and as good Christians we should absolve them. Well, I aint a Christian but I absolve them!

Thank you for bringing that up, Synova. I agree completely. I can't believe Obama and Hillary are being given such a pass on this total failure - worse than a failure - our government is financially punishing the Hondurans for following their Constitution!

He asked someone "How can you write with a little chicken in your mouth?", as if there were something shameful about eating chicken. He obviously meant 'cock' as in penis, but the German word Hahn, though it means 'cock' as in male chicken, does not mean 'penis'..

"Lost you"? Sorry, but for any intelligent, fair-minded and rational person to back Obama in any way, shape or form after the Wright revelations is a disgrace and a shame. The fact that he indoctrinated his children from birth in divisive racial hate, as well as espousing the same himself should have disqualified him from the Presidency, period. He is continuing his racist policies by naming a bigot like Sotomayor and his other racist policies.

That's all beside the socialism combined with oppressive gov. control of society and confiscatory taxes and take-overs of public businesses.

Anyone who backed this guy against McCain who is just now "waking up" is either dense or dishonest. I don't think of Ann Althouse as dense.

I am also quite bitter towards those who half-heartedly or not at all backed McCain with the excuse he'd be "just as bad". He certainly would not have been re: foreign affairs, which Obama is botching on every side.

Hopefully his overreach, hubris and arrogance will trip him up when his admin's criminal activities finally catch up with him and we may finally see a guilty president actually removed in an impeachment. I truly believe it may happen.

These are actually high times for the GOP, notwithstanding all the obituaries we read all year about the Republican Party. The seeds of the Dem descent are being sown and even how the wheels are in motion. It's better to be on the way up than treading water or going down, and the Dems are bleeding badly.

"Jim - the fascinating thing is to look at California. They are actually cutting back programs, not just decreasing the rate of growth. This is almost unprecedented."

What people are ignoring is that the bulk of the stimulus was actually sent to the states to make up for their Medicaid shortfalls. That's temporary money that will be gone soon enough, as the NGA's revolt against ObamaCare over the weekend when they discussed the new, even larger unfunded mandate was discussed.

California is a harbinger of things to come across the country. The pain will be most acute where the spending has increased the most. If you think the headlines were bad for state governments this year, just wait until California has to do the same thing all over again next year - along with a probably majority of states across the country.

That's why I think that many economists are still being way too optimistic on the unemployment numbers. Just look at the length of the average workweek being at or below 33 hours per week. There's a ton of slack already built into the numbers of people working, and the stimulus money is just postponing more inevitable layoffs - not preventing them.

Now that the public appetite for spending more untold billions has evaporated completely and the money inevitably runs out, look for even more unemployment pain to come.